News & Events
George Fox sends 70-plus students on Spring Serve trips
Students on last year's Spring Serve trip to Neah Bay gather for a group photo during the trip. George Fox will send a team back to the same location this spring.
During the week of March 20-27, students traveled to Yakima, Seattle, and Neah Bay, Wash., as well as Los Angeles, to work on service projects in various cross-cultural settings.
The following are descriptions of the four trips:
- A team of 12 will serve at the Flying H. Ranch, located 30 miles west of Yakima, Wash. Students on this trip will do physical labor and minister to the teens at the ranch.
- A team of 12 students will serve with the Center for Student Missions (CSM) in Los Angeles. CSM partners with local churches and organizations to help meet the needs of urban communities. Students on the trip will serve others by playing with children at after-school programs and serving at homeless shelters.
- A group of 24 students will go to Seattle and serve at various ministries, including Urban Impact and New Horizons Ministries. Students will do a variety of work, including working with an after-school tutoring program, helping at community events, and cleaning program sites. Students also will have the opportunity to tour New Horizons’ facilities and learn about the ministry’s work with runaways and prostitutes.
- A group of 24 students will travel to Neah Bay, Wash., to work on the Makah Indian Reservation. Students on this trip will work to maintain and improve the environmental habitat on the reservation, which includes stream development and beach clean up. Other work will include painting, gardening, and chopping wood, along with learning about the culture and history of the Makah tribe and building relationships with the local community.
Participating students are selected through an application process. They pay part of the costs of their trips, which are subsidized by the student government. Each of the trips has a faculty, staff, or alumni leader, assisted by two undergraduate student leaders.
The trips are part of the university’s commitment to Christian service, which also includes an annual day of service for which the university closes; community service projects that reach out to Newberg, Ore., and surrounding communities; and an urban services program that sends students to Portland and Salem, Ore., to build relationships with the homeless.